GBI's Brendan Press explains how the company is branching out with enticing new options in the region.
For connecting internet traffic between East and West, the route south of the Arabian Peninsula and via the Suez Canal has always been a key pathway. There, a whole multitude of cables converge and then run on through to the Mediterranean.
This well-trodden route provides an ideal, logical transit point between regions. But in today’s communications market, the call for diversity in routes is growing. “Almost all traffic crossing that area is going through this southern route,” says Brendan Press, chief commercial officer at Qatar-based global cloud, connectivity and network enabler Gulf Bridge International (GBI). That, he says, calls for alternatives in case of disruption to services.
Like other providers, GBI has a cable along this traditional pathway, known as the South Route. However, to create a properly competitive alternative, the company has also been developing its North Route by providing additional diversity through Iraq. This avoids the perils that can emerge from network bottlenecks and outages, as well as any potential geopolitical issues that may affect traffic or buildouts through overreliance on a single route.
“If something in the south goes down, traffic can go north, and if something in the north goes down, it can go south,” says Press.
As it cuts out the Arabian Peninsula, the route is shorter and therefore slashes latency by 30% into Europe compared with the South Route, according to Press.
Ripe for growth
Meanwhile, he says, the time is ripe for traffic to start ramping up on the North Route given that costs have been coming down, driven by the government and local players seeking to open up the market further to the digital transformation. On that front, GBI has been working with multiple parties to help create the ideal market conditions and Press says there’s a clear sense of excitement that things are really moving now. “There is a very strong desire to make this route a competitive route to that through the south,” he says.
That’s why Press expects the North Route through Iraq to make big waves in 2024, gaining momentum as an alternative pathway between regions. “The investment has happened in terms of the capability and the commercial side of things, and the ingredients are now there for this to be considered as a real alternative route for carriers and OTT hyperscalers,” he says.
Evidence of this potential upsurge has already been seen this year, with GBI recently securing a deal with an as-yet unnamed major OTT player for several 100G capacities on the North Route and expecting others to follow. “We are continuing to invest in the South Route as well,” says Press. “But the North Route provides that differentiator and that choice, security and availability.”
Bringing choice
On top of that, GBI is diversifying in other areas to provide a fuller offering for customers including OTTs and hyperscalers. Previously, the company secured a partnership with Qatar-based data centre player MEEZA to provide a fully hosted end-to-end connectivity service for a leading global social media organisation.
Now, GBI is taking things further by moving into areas including data centres, giving customers and partners access to more integrated services.
“We’ve decided to evolve the business into new areas that will generate new sources of revenue, but still related to our core infrastructure needs across the region,” says Press.
On the data centre side, GBI has struck up a partnership with digital infrastructure company Pure DC, with a view to having its own carrier-neutral data centre capability in Qatar’s capital, Doha, within the next 24 months. The company also plans to evaluate further opportunities in this area in the future.
Integrating these types of services alongside the enhancement of its networks to offer diversity means that GBI can provide customers with a multifaceted set of capabilities, says Press. “It means we are a party that can provide an end-to-end offering not just from a connectivity perspective on new routes, but also from a data-centre-hosting perspective,” he says. And that extra choice, he believes, will be an increasingly valued option for customers in the market.
